Modern electronic systems rely on rapid execution of programs and manipulation of data. The growing importance of “Big Data” databases is stressing the established data storage structures and processes. The term Big Data refers to huge volumes of data having a diverse and complex nature that is captured very quickly. Data is exploding at an astounding rate: up until 2003 approximately 5 exabytes of data was created, 90% of the data was structured data that was gathered through rational database management systems (RDBMS), and the rest was unstructured data. Currently, unstructured data is growing faster than structured data. Predictions are made that data will grow to 5 zettabytes by 2015. Unstructured data is growing faster than structured data. According to an International Data Corporation (IDC) study, 90% of all data created in the next decade will be unstructured data.
The logistics of storing Big Data databases exposes weakness in the technology of the SSD. Storage cell wear issues can include a limited number of reads allowed between each write, a limited number of writes before the cell becomes inoperative, erasures count as a write, erase required prior to writing, erasure can only be performed in larger capacity than that of write, and Flash memory can include imperfect cells, which need to be managed as bad blocks. The storage cell wear issues require constant maintenance as well as over-provisioning, which reserves additional capacity of the storage cells that is not available in the rated capacity available to the user. In order to accommodate the requirement of the Big Data databases and their uses, large capacity storage devices must be used. The typical uses of the Big Data can very quickly cause an SSD to experience degraded performance due to the background maintenance required to protect the data. Multiple reads of the data can reduce the retention reliability and multiple writes can physically damage the storage cells of the SSD. Normal operations of Big Data databases under block-level storage architecture can cause the block-level SSD to spend more time maintaining the reliability of the data than being able to accept new read/write commands.
Thus, a need still remains for electronic system with storage management mechanism to improve execution reliability and performance in clustered computing environments. In view of the ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems. Additionally, the need to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.